‘I am not a watch freak’: Benoit Mintiens, founder of independent watch brand Ressence

Out-of-the-box thinking is often what makes for exciting, unpredictable products. And it’s something an industry like fine watchmaking, with its centuries-long history of extolling tradition, could use more of. It’s why independent brands like Ressence are such fun to behold — the thought process of its founder Benoit Mintiens wasn’t so much outside the box as it was miles away from it. Up until 2010 he had built his reputation on designing buildings, furniture, and motorcycles.

But the Belgian industrial designer saw the watch industry as fertile ground in which to further cultivate his creativity. “There are many dimensions in which you can be creative in watchmaking,” he explained. “You can think about ergonomics, materials, cost, and the whole universe behind the brand. And one of the things I’m most proud of with Ressence is that I was able to offer another vision on all those things.”

That vision crystallised in watches that have no crowns (anymore) or traditional hands, with all indications displayed using rotating discs that lie satisfyingly flat on a single plane. His latest release, the Type 1 Round M, is a colourful variation of the Type 1 Round launched earlier in 2023 that perfectly exemplifies the brand’s focus on legibility, function, and pleasing aesthetics.

Ressence watches may look futuristic but it wasn’t a conscious decision to make them so. “If our watches look modern, it’s because we apply modern design thinking to watchmaking,” he said. For instance, to increase readability and obtain a refraction-free, screen-like display of the time, Mintiens filled the dials of the Type 3 and Type 5 watches with oil, which had never been done before in watchmaking. Despite some of his creations looking like luxurious smartwatches, Mintiens insists a mechanical heart is essential.

“As humans, we have a lot more empathy for things we can understand or relate to. One silly example is how some people give names to inanimate things,” he noted. “This is why a mechanical movement is something I have to use. It’s hard to understand what’s happening in a circuit board, but we can understand something that works with gears. Smartwatches offer a completely dry experience — your senses are not triggered.”

Mintien’s foray into watchmaking was rather accidental. “I had a friend in the diamond business who asked if I could design a watch for him. It never got further than a good drawing and a prototype, but after that I started to look around and see what the industry was doing.” Curious to see how far he could take his own ideas, Mintiens took the plunge in 2010, bringing the first Ressence prototypes — the now-discontinued Zero Series — to Baselworld.

“When I arrived, guys like [Maximilian] Busser and [Felix] Baumgartner came over to introduce themselves and said, ‘Well, you look like an alien here. So if we can help you, just give us a call.’ It was amazing,” Mintiens recalled. “I called my friend that evening going, ‘Can you believe my competitors are helping me? Where else do you have that?’ So I was extremely charmed by my early days in the watch business. Independent watchmaking was not what it is today. We were stronger together.”

Certainly, the interest in independent watchmaking has flourished over the past decade, which Mintiens attributes to the growing sophistication of buyers. “The industry is like a savannah, and the major corporations are like the lions that can catch the zebra. I’m too small to do that, but their leftovers are more than enough for me, so it’s fine,” he stated. “But I think many people are starting to realise that the big brands have an agenda, and thanks to social media they are discovering more profoundly what is out there, and they can see the depth or the shallowness of certain propositions.”

With consumers’ growing knowledge, Mintiens acknowledges that brands like Ressence won’t be most peoples’ first choice. “Most independent brands are very expensive,” he conceded. “So I don’t think we really harm the major brands. We’re more like decoration, and I’m perfectly okay with that.”

Which is why growth for growth’s sake isn’t what Mintiens is gunning for. “When you’re a small organisation, one person needs to do many things,” he said, revealing that he currently has only 12 people on the Ressence payroll, and subcontractors to take care of production and assembly. “The perfect size would be when everyone can focus on their specialty so that we can become better service providers for our clients. I will get there in 20 years.”

Like all small outfits, trying to meet demand is Mintiens’ current and constant preoccupation. But even if he could magically conjure as many watches as he wanted, he is disdainful of forced exclusivity. “I am a watch producer, so I refuse to play these games,” he declared. “Having a waiting list of two to three years because you’re so cool and successful — I can understand it from a marketing point of view but after two years, clients are going to say they don’t need it anymore because they bought three other watches in the meantime. This is why people say, ‘You know what? I’m going to buy an independent brand now because I’m fed up with your little strategies.’”

Given his background, it’s not surprising that Mintiens respects good design before anything else. He admits to being a big fan of Marc Newson’s Ikepod watches, as well as Audemars Piguet’s original Starwheel from the 1980s. “I think Urwerk makes many nice designs and we talked about collaborating. We appreciate each other so maybe it will happen one day,” he teased. However that may end up looking, we can be sure that function will come before form. “I always think about a product’s purpose and its relationship to the user before I start to think about what it looks like,” he asserted. “I am not a watch freak — I am a product freak.”